


Shouldn't have taken you in

by wisia



Category: DCU
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Implied Underage, M/M, Soulmates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-18
Updated: 2015-01-18
Packaged: 2018-03-08 00:49:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,248
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3189575
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wisia/pseuds/wisia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bruce shouldn’t have taken Dick in, but how could he resist when the boy’s his soulmate?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Shouldn't have taken you in

**Author's Note:**

  * For [matan4il](https://archiveofourown.org/users/matan4il/gifts).



> For matan4il as thank you for helping me look over the DCU Fic Hunt, second place fic.
> 
> Extreme thankful to lainexox for beta-ing me on the spot and quickly. :)

To this day, Bruce never knows if he regrets going to the circus or not. He likes to think he could have refused, avoided this entire mess. Then he wouldn’t have to deal with this. It’s only wishful thinking though because Bruce would have ended up at the circus regardless. There was no way he couldn’t have, not as Batman seeking out crime and delivering justice.

The bond sinks deep into him, bites at him to complete it. Bruce refuses.

                It frays his every nerve, every bit of his composure. He wonders if it’s a punishment. How can he be happy like this? The bond tests him every step of the way, and it tests him even now. Here, at one of those celebrity shindigs. Bruce gives in because he is only human. He lets the bond steer his gaze across the room to Dick, who draws everyone’s attention so naturally. His own eyes shouldn’t cause such a stir, just another pair in the room, but Dick feels it. Looks up and smiles at him. It sends a roaring course of blind joy through Bruce’s entire being.

                Bruce swallows wine from the glass in his hand along with an immense sense of shame and guilt. He cannot do this.

                He goes to the cave and works. Forces his mind to look across every file that needs addressing immediately and even those that don’t. Alfred comes in like clockwork, depositing a tray of coffee and something sweet.

                “Master Bruce,” Alfred says slowly.

                “No,” Bruce replies, quick and short. Alfred sighs.

                “You should tell him.”

                “I can’t,” Bruce says, and Alfred nods. Pauses for a second, but still the old man doesn’t say what he wants to. Alfred leaves this song and dance they’ve already performed a hundred thousand times before. Alfred knows why Bruce thinks he can’t. Was there from the start when Bruce brought home a little boy from the Circus and saw the anguish there.

                If it was different, if it wasn’t like this, then Bruce could. But it wasn’t, and it’s not.

                Bruce returns to his work, letting the coffee grow cold.

                God knows Bruce tries. Tries to be a good man and tries to be happy. The effort should count, shouldn’t it? He falls into bed with Selina Kyle, chasing her kisses and touches. Washes down the burn of the bond with her lips and every bit of her laugh. It doesn’t compare to Dick’s. It never does, but Bruce pretends that it’s close enough. It has to be close enough because he can’t have Dick.

                It isn’t.

                He tries again with Diana, but she stops him before he can.

                “Bruce,” she says. “I’m flattered but—“

                Bruce knows and allows the rejection to sting him as much as is possible. He wallows in it because that ache has to better, stronger than the solitude the bond leaves him in. Denying the bond leaves everything inside him wide and gaping with nothing to fill it.

                Diana probably knew anyway. Knew just how utterly in the wrong Bruce was. To take a child that was his (his in every goddamn way) and raise him. Bruce isn’t meant to be happy. Not like this.

                The closest Bruce gets is Talia. She is passion and fire, and everything about her nearly scorches out the bond that demands to be completed. Bruce can forget, and it’s almost perfect. Almost right, but it isn’t enough.

                Bruce is bitter that he feels relief among the heartache as their marriage dissolves.

                It gives him a son however. One that asks far too many questions and knows more than he should.

                “I like Grayson,” Damian says one day and lifts his eyes to Bruce meaningfully. As if Bruce should act.

                Bruce hums, and it isn’t what Damian wants.

                “You should marry him,” Damian says after careful consideration and it freezes Bruce. Makes his hands still and the world spin. Bruce sends him out, sends him away with angry words and a confusion as to his father’s sudden loss of composure.

                It brings Dick to his door, to his bedroom late at night. It is just as tempting as those early days, when Dick cried and asked to share a bed because he could still see his parents falling to their deaths. Only Dick isn’t so tiny, so little anymore. It’s harder to push away the desire because he isn’t a child. Dick is a man, and he stands at Bruce’s doorway, every inch of him painfully tantalizing.

                “What did you do?” Dick asks. “Damian wouldn’t talk to me, but I know he was with you.”

Bruce doesn’t answer. He turns his back to Dick and looks out the window where the moon is hidden by the clouds. Because Bruce cannot let his desires see the light. Not ever.

                “I’ll talk to him tomorrow,” Bruce says and feels the bond tug at him. He expects Dick to leave. The door closes, and Bruce sighs into the silence of the air.

                “Stupid,” Bruce says and vows to control himself better. He feels the pull again. This time, he allows himself to follow the direction of the pull. Just for a little bit. It leads him straight…

                Into Dick.

                “Dick?” Bruce jerks away from him. Dick is too close. “What are you doing?”

                He tries to laugh it off, “Trying to give me a heart attack?”

                Dick looks at him with solemn blue eyes, and Bruce feels the bond tight in his chest. In every atom of his being, struggling to reach out and complete.

                “I know,” Dick says simply, and the world falls away from Bruce in one fell swoop. It’s dizzy and terrifying, and still Bruce doesn’t let go. Doesn’t release his hold over the bond.

                “How?” Bruce croaks out.

                “I’ve always wondered why you didn’t like talking about soulmates,” Dick says and leans closer. His gaze is piercing. Bruce has to look away just to focus enough to speak.

                “It’s wrong,” Bruce says. “I raised you.”

                “You didn’t have to,” Dick says.

                “I did,” Bruce says. He was selfish. Wanted his soulmate close to him, in his space, in the same air even if he was a child then.

                “You didn’t do anything.”

                “I still took you,” Bruce points out. He squeezes his eyes shut and opens them. Nearly starts when he finds Dick even closer.

                “And?” Dick asks as if it didn’t matter. “We don’t have normal lives.”

                “You—I shouldn’t,” Bruce stammered, “have taken you in. You should have a choice.”

                Dick smiles brilliantly. “What if you’re my choice?”

                And Bruce feels it then. The way the bond stretches and grows between them till he is flooded with everything that Dick feels. It’s the reason why Bruce kisses him then. Brings his mouth down and kisses Dick as thoroughly as he can. Tastes him as if it’s the only chance he will ever have. The bond flows through Bruce and his hold shatters.

                “This is wrong,” Bruce rasps against Dick’s lips. “If I didn’t—“

                “You never did anything, Bruce.” Dick stares at him, wills him to argue. “Yes, you raised me. But you let me grow. Date other people. You never  _even_  told me, and you know what? I came back. To you.”  

                The bond is impossible to ignore, even if Bruce’s heart wasn’t pounding. It’s as if he can’t breathe.

                “Please, Bruce?”

                And Bruce surrenders. Lets the bond finally complete itself as it might have those twenty some odd years ago.


End file.
